Negocios

EUR. J. ENG. ED.,

2001,

VOL.

26, NO. 4, 419–427

Training complete engineers: global enterprise and engineering education
E R IK D E GR A A FF and WI M R AV E S T E IJ N †
For the past few years a discussion has been going on about the speci c skills and knowledge a complete engineer should possess. Apart form this discussion, a separate debate has focused on the content of anengineer’s education. This article is a combination of two joint papers (De Graaff and Ravesteijn 2000, Ravesteijn and De Graaff 2000) bearing on these respective subjects, presented by the authors at the SEFI 2000 conference in Paris. The demands from industry that engineers of the future will have to meet are summarized and related to characteristics of modern training methods. It is argued that a newview on the content of the engineer’s education implies, at least to a certain extent, a new set of educational tools.

1.

Introduction Engineers are used to a rather sheltered position. For a long time they were always the ones that created practical solutions to the challenges of mankind. Normally, in the area of their expertise their judgement went unchallenged. However, as technologicalinnovations have come to succeed one another at an everincreasing pace, the unassailable position of the expert is giving way (the so-called half life of new technology is estimated at 7 years). In several cases this lesson was learned the hard way. Philips, the Dutch electronics rm, for instance, had to experience the débâcle with the V2000 system. Without dispute the Philips system wastechnologically superior to the competing Betamax and VHS systems. The cassettes could even be played in both directions to a total of two times in 2 h. Nevertheless, as we all know, VHS became the world standard due to a better (more aggressive) marketing strategy. Another famous incident is the disposal of the Brent Spar by Shell. This large offshore storage facility had become obsolete. The engineers ofShell carefully considered a range of options for disposal. Balancing safety, environment and cost factors, they concluded that the best method of disposal was to sink the Brent Spar in the deep of the ocean. The error of Shell engineers became evident when Green Peace raised the environmental issue in the press. The public was not convinced by the technical arguments. In the end Shell had tosettle for dismantling the Brent Spar on shore in Norway, an option that had been set aside previously as being too complex, dangerous and expensive and that would give no environmental bene t compared with deep-water disposal. Such incidents clearly demonstrate that the public does no longer take the experts’ judgements for granted. A new kind of engineer is needed, an engineer with
† DelftUniversity of Technology, Faculty of Technology, Policy and Management, P.O. Box 5015, 2600 GA Delft, The Netherlands.

European Journal of Engineering Education ISSN 0343-3797 print/ISSN 1469-5898 online © 2001 Taylor & Francis Ltd http://www.tandf.co.uk/journals DOI: 10.1080/0304379011006870 1

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E. de Graaff and W. Ravesteijn

a solid foundation in basic sciences and constructiontechnology, who on top of that is fully aware of what is going on in society and who has the skills to deal with those societal aspects. Consequently, the personnel managers of multinational industries no longer de ne the ideal recruit in terms of traditional knowledge and skills, but are searching to recruit young engineers with a ‘plus’. Which precise competencies such a new engineer should possess isthe subject of debate, both within global enterprise circles and among the engineering education experts. The discussion on the speci c skills and knowledge the new engineer should possess will have consequences for engineering education. Evidently, training this new type of engineer requires adaptation of the existing engineering curricula. Universities will have to reckon with the wishes from...